I can confirm that Aero works on a Windows 7 guest and Mac OS X host. What doesn't work is Aero on a Windows 7 guest (fresh install, booted to safe mode, installed WDDM drivers) on a Linux host (Ubuntu Natty, latest updates) - VM is veeeery slow and unresponsive.

Edit: It seems the redraw is horrendously slow, if I have the VBox window sized to ~800x600, it does redraw and I get a usable (and speedy) Aero desktop. Any bigger and I'm waiting for ever with a black window.

Xubuntu 11.04, nVidia GT210 with nVidia driver installed, AMD FX-60, 3 GB RAM. VM with W7 Pro x86 and WDDM. No problems with different resolutions up to 1152x864. There are a few redraw issues where parts become black, but mostly the desktop and making a selection in that spot or put another window on top of it solves it. I do get black screens when I change the resolution. Either a refresh of the entire display is needed, or a save state/resume. The window preview in the main GUI shows the display properly, but sometimes tends to hang. When I logged on, the window went black and hang on the Welcome text. After a save state/resume, the VM logged in properly but the main GUI preview stayed on the log in dialogue with the text "welcome" until the VM was shut down.

Side note: Windows' games still don't work. Solitaire crashes with the dialogue "program stopped responding", asking for online solution check or just close the program. Same thing with minesweeper and others.

If they crash for you most likely you've got corrupted direct3d files, run dxdiag to check this out.Same note to all the testers, to avoid messing with previous drivers installations make sure to uninstall previous guest additions if any, then reinstall DirectX and only then install new guest additions (also, note that you do NOT need to boot into safe mode while installing wddm drivers).

Install DirectX? That always lead to problems in the past, why is it suddenly required? Anyway, it disables Aero on my end, then when it restores itself, I get a black screen and have to save state/resume again. Dxdiag does the same. I don't see anything wrong in it, other than the WHQL logo testing. Is there anything I should look for specifically? I'm going to remove the GA, run sfc /scannow to fix system files and reinstall the 4.1 GA again. Maybe that will fix the games.

I've reinstalled the GA after removing them but now I cannot even start the games. Nothing shows up. I even tried reinstalling them, but it doesn't work. No crash report, no window, no process in task manager, nothing.

Sasquatch wrote:Install DirectX? That always lead to problems in the past, why is it suddenly required? Anyway, it disables Aero on my end, then when it restores itself, I get a black screen and have to save state/resume again. Dxdiag does the same. I don't see anything wrong in it, other than the WHQL logo testing. Is there anything I should look for specifically? I'm going to remove the GA, run sfc /scannow to fix system files and reinstall the 4.1 GA again. Maybe that will fix the games.

The old d3d support replaced system d3d9.dll and d3d8.dll files to make VBox d3d work. With the new WDDM driver this is no longer required. So if you had the old d3d support installed previously, please ensure the files are restored for the wddm driver to work properly. In that case no DirectX reinstall should be needed. Please take a look at %windir%\System32\d3d8.dll and %windir%\System32\d3d9.dll files properties to ensure these are original system files (e.g. in explorer right-click the file, in the context menu select "Properties" and in the "Details" tab of the properties dialog ensure the file's "Product name" property is "MS Windows OS", etc.).Basically VBox additions installer should handle that automatically, if it does not - please report it here.

The file versions are from VB 4.0.4. I remember that there was a bug in 4.0.x or 3.2.x that didn't restore or backup those files properly. Now, I don't run the VM that often, so I could have skipped the 4.0.6 and above GA that might have fixed that. I'll install DirectX 9 separately and see how that goes. Maybe I have less issues with the black screens when logging in and have to save state the VM every time to fix it.

Sidenote, I tried to run sfc /scannow to check the system file integrity and fix inconsistencies, but it didn't work, it was unable to fix them. That might have been the D3D files. I'll report back after I reinstalled DX9 and performed that check again.

Well, installed DX9 successfully, but still d3d8.dll and d3d9.dll are branded by VB. The sfc /scannow command gives the same result, found errors but unable to fix. I can return to a VM state that is as clean as it gets, but I rather not.